Public policies are designed to have an impact on particular societies, yet policy-oriented computer models and simulations often focus more on articulating the policies to be applied than on realistically rendering the cultural dynamics of the target society. This approach can lead to policy assessments that ignore crucial social contextual factors. For example, by leaving out distinctive moral and normative dimensions of cultural contexts in artificial societies, estimations of downstream policy effectiveness fail to account for dynamics that are fundamental in (...) human life and central to many public policy challenges. In this paper, we supply evidence that incorporating morally salient dimensions of a culture is critically important for producing relevant and accurate evaluations of social policy when using multi-agent artificial intelligence models and simulations. (shrink)

This uniquely inspirational and practical book explores human simulation, which is the application of computational modeling and simulation to research subjects in the humanities disciplines. It delves into the fascinating process of collaboration among experts who usually don’t have much to do with one another – computer engineers and humanities scholars – from the perspective of the humanities scholars. It also explains the process of developing models and simulations in these interdisciplinary teams. Each chapter takes the reader on a journey, (...) presenting a specific theory about the human condition, a model of that theory, discussion of its implementation, analysis of its results, and an account of the collaborative experience. Contributing authors with different fields of expertise share how each model was validated, discuss relevant datasets, explain development strategies, and frankly discuss the ups and downs of the process of collaborative development. Readers are given access to the models and will also gain new perspectives from the authors’ findings, experiences, and recommendations. Today we are in the early phases of an information revolution, combining access to vast computing resources, large amounts of human data through social media, and an unprecedented richness of methods and tools to capture, analyze, explore, and test hypotheses and theories of all kinds. Thus, this book’s insights will be valuable not only to students and scholars of humanities subjects, but also to the general reader and researchers from other disciplines who are intrigued by the expansion of the information revolution all the way into the humanities departments of modern universities. (shrink)

Modeling is as old as humanity. It is one of the ways in which we experience the world, teach our children, and entertain ourselves. The digital computer, on the other hand, is approximately 60 years old but as computing power increases and access to technology becomes easier, more disciplines are using statistical and computational simulations. From the humanities to social sciences, scholars are advocating for a computational branch of their field of study. This is very exciting, and we want to (...) make sure that all disciplines stay connected and share their insights as they grow in their respective areas. Religion is a complex system that consists of humans, society, culture and social constructs that have evolved over millennia. The study of religion relies on empirical approaches to collect and analyze data to generate or validate existing theories. Modeling and simulation allows us to venture beyond statistical observation and into an exploration of the causal relationships between the different aspects of religion. It provides us with the ability to understand the system as a whole, the possibility of projecting how religion will evolve in the future and the capability to compare, contrast and merge seemingly conflicting theories of religion. In this article, we present five critical things that scholars in psychology of religion should know about the discipline of Modeling and Simulation. The goal of this short primer is to highlight the universal aspects of Modeling and Simulation and to provide a unifying view that transcends disciplines. (shrink)

Operating universities under pandemic conditions is a complex undertaking. The Artificial University responds to this need. TAU is a configurable, open-source computer simulation of a university using a contact network based on publicly available information about university classes, residences, and activities. This study evaluates health outcomes for an array of interventions and testing protocols in an artificial university of 6,500 students, faculty, and staff. Findings suggest that physical distancing and centralized contact tracing are most effective at reducing infections, but there (...) is a tipping point for compliance below which physical distancing is less effective. If student compliance is anything short of high, it helps to have separate buildings for quarantining infected students, thereby gracefully increasing compliance. Hybrid in-person and online classes and closing fitness centers do not significantly change cumulative infections but do significantly decrease the number of the infected at any given time, indicating strategies for “flattening the curve” to protect limited resources. Supplementing physical distancing with centralized contact tracing decreases infected individuals by an additional 14%; boosting frequency of testing for student-facing staff yields a further 7% decrease. A trade-off exists between increasing the sheer number of infection tests and targeting testing for key nodes in the contact network. There are significant advantages to getting and acting on test results quickly. The costs and benefits to universities of these findings are discussed. Artificial universities can be an important decision support tool for universities, generating useful policy insights into the challenges of operating universities under pandemic conditions. (shrink)

The social sciences and humanities are fragmented into specialized areas, each with their own parlance and procedures. This hinders information sharing and the growth of a coherent body of knowledge. Modeling and simulation can be the scientific lingua franca, or shared technical language, that can unite, integrate, and relate relevant parts of these diverse disciplines.Models are well established in the scientific community as mediators, contributors, and enablers of scientific knowledge. We propose a potentially revolutionary linkage between social sciences, humanities and (...) computer simulation, forging what we call “human simulation.” We explore three facets of human simulation, namely: the simulation of humans, the design of simulations for human use, and simulations that include humans as well as simulated agents among the actors. We describe the potential of human simulation using several illuminating examples. We also discuss computational, epistemological, and hermeneutical challenges constraining the use of human simulation. (shrink)

Religious practices centered on controlled trance states, such as Siberian shamanism or North African zar, are ubiquitous, yet their characteristics vary. In particular, cross-cultural research finds that female-dominated spirit possession cults are common in stratified societies, whereas male-dominated shamanism predominates in structurally flatter cultures. Here, we present an agent-based model that explores factors, including social stratification and psychological dissociation, that may partially account for this pattern. We posit that, in more stratified societies, female agents suffer from higher levels of psychosocial (...) trauma, whereas male agents are more vulnerable in flatter societies. In societies with fewer levels of formal hierarchy, males come into informal social competition more regularly than in stratified contexts. This instability leads to a cultural feedback effect in which dissociative experiences deriving from chronic psychosocial stress become canalized into a male religious trance role. The model reproduces these patterns under plausible parameter configurations. (shrink)

Debates over the causes and consequences of the “Axial Age” – and its relevance for understanding and explaining “modernity” – continue to rage within and across a wide variety of academic disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, archaeology, history, social theory, and cognitive science. We present a computational model that synthesizes three leading theories about the emergence of axial civilizations. Although these theories are often treated as competitors, our computational model shows how their most important conceptual insights and empirically based causal claims (...) can be integrated within a single computational architecture. The plausibility of the latter is supported by the results of our simulation experiments, which were able to simulate the emergence and growth of an axial civilization. The model shows how the relevant theories can be rendered consistent, while challenging the claims of any one to comprehensiveness. (shrink)

We present a perspective of the national transplant program based on organizational theory and complexity theory, framing the system’s allocation of donor organs as an interorganizational directed multiplex of agents with diverse belief formation in a cooperative-competitive environment. Simulation and analysis of this macroscale complexity may help explain known behavioural variations across member organizations. However, the transplant community still relies on system-scale simulations since effective macroscale methodologies are not well established. Therefore, we offer this perspective of the national transplant program (...) as a means to stimulate new methods that capture macroscale impacts of policy development for deceased donor organ allocation. (shrink)

"Le concept, principal ressort de l'abstraction philosophique, est aujourd'hui, paradoxalement, inadéquate pour exprimer les arguments philosophiques qui font débat en Afrique noire. Trop aride, trop étroit, trop univoque, le concept réduit ce qui est vécu comme un 'conflit de cultures' à un simple 'conflit intellectuel'. Pour éviter cet appauvrissement, le concept exige le détour par la fiction romanesque. En témoignent deux romans L'aventure ambiguë de Cheikh H. Kane et Entre les eaux de V.Y. Mudimbe. À travers eux, le romancier se (...) fait philosophe, et le philosophe pleinement écrivain. Autant dire que le discours philosophique exige un 'dehors', une extériorité radicale capable de l'éclairer. 'Philosopher en Afrique noire' relève autant du faire voir que du penser, tous deux inséparables l'un de l'autre."--Page 4 de la couverture. (shrink)

Nous invitons ici à une véritable promenade intellectuelle qui nous conduit à creuser l'histoire de la pensée et du penser en Islam pour y retrouver des rationalistes invétérés et endurcis dont le souci fut de défendre la raison au prix de leur foi : ce sont les rationalistes qu'on appelle communément " Mu'tazila ". Très tôt, ce mouvement prit une dimension rationnelle en développant au sein de l'Islam les thèses critiques et philosophiques les plus inattendues d'une religion. Cette histoire des (...) idées que nous voulons parcourir nous mènera au " siècle des lumières en Islam " même si l'expression est quelque peu contestée par certains intellectuels musulmans qui pensent à un manque de considération pour les nouveaux penseurs de l'Islam comme si le moment de la bonne pensée n'est pas le leur. On peut leur donner raison. L'histoire ne bégaie pas toujours. Elle est parfois infidèle. Telle est malheureusement l'histoire de l'Islam. Une histoire d'hybridation et parfois d'infidélité au texte. Apparue comme une religion de salut et de raison, son image est ternie aujourd'hui par ceux qui, au prix du glaive, substituent la modernisation de la pensée islamique à une islamisation violente de la modernité. (shrink)

This research investigates the influence that consumers’ perceptions of retail business ethics have on their responses when retailers either create social discount spaces or do not. Using scenarios to imply these social practices and structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses among a sample of 689 respondents, the authors find that consumers’ perceptions of retail business ethics have positive effects on consumer loyalty, both directly and through consumer trust, as well as positive, strong influences on the retailer’s corporate social responsibility (...) and corporate reputation. Furthermore, consumers’ perceptions of retail business ethics exert a stronger effect on consumer trust in integrated social discount spaces, though social discount practices do not affect the link between such perceptions and loyalty. Compared with when the retailer does not offer discount space, collaborative and integrated social discount spaces have weaker effects on trust and loyalty to the retailer. These findings have several notable theoretical and practical implications. (shrink)

This study aimed to identify the learning and business incubation processes and their impact on developing the performance of business incubators in Gaza Strip, and the study relied on the descriptive analytical approach, and the study population consisted of all employees working in business incubators in Gaza Strip in addition to experts and consultants in incubators where their total number reached (62) individuals, and the researchers used the questionnaire as a main tool to collect data through the comprehensive survey method, (...) where (55) questionnaires were retrieved with a recovery rate of (88.7%). The results of the study showed that there is a high approval of the variables of the study, where the dimension of incubation operations came with a relative weight (84.89%), followed by the learning dimension which got a relative weight (82.50%), while the performance level of the incubators got a relative weight (80.12%) and as the study results showed There is a positive relationship statistically between the two dimensions of learning and business incubation processes and performance development in business incubators, and the linear regression analysis model showed that the main effect in improving the performance of business incubators is "after business incubation operations" while it showed weak effect after learning. The study came out with several recommendations, the most important of which is that business incubators seek to reinforce the learning process and incubation processes for business, and the need to periodically evaluate their performance, and that a more effective mechanism be designed to follow up with companies after the end of the incubation period and monitor the progress of these companies. (shrink)

Sustainable luxury is a strategic issue for managers and for society, yet it remains poorly understood. This research seeks to clarify how corporate social responsibility actions directly and indirectly affect consumers’ willingness to pay a premium price for luxury brand products, as well as how a long-term orientation might moderate these relationships. A scenario study presents fictional CSR actions of two brands, representing different luxury products, to 1,049 respondents from two countries. The results of a structural equation modeling approach show (...) that the luxury brands’ CSR actions negatively affect customer WTPP overall and for each brand. The luxury brands’ functional and symbolic value dimensions positively mediate the effects of CSR actions on WTPP, whereas social value does not. The effects of CSR actions and brand symbolic value on WTTP do not differ between countries. The effect of functional value on WTPP differs across countries, such that it is stronger for high-LTO than low-LTO cultures. Inversely, the effect of social on customer WTPP is stronger for low-LTO than high-LTO cultures. These findings have theoretical and practical implications for luxury brand managers. (shrink)

Lorsqu’elle nous reçoit à Conakry, en république de Guinée, ce 22 janvier 2002, Mme Kadidiatou Diallo prépare la commémoration de la « journée des pendus » au cours de laquelle, le 25 janvier 1971, de nombreuses personnes furent exécutées par pendaison à travers toute la Guinée, sur ordre du président de la République Ahmed Sékou Touré. Mme Diallo Telli a déjà accordé de nombreux entretiens à des journalistes qui l’ont interrogée sur son époux, Boubacar Diallo Telli, une (...) des plus célèbres per... (shrink)

In psychiatry, pharmacological research has played a crucial role in the formulation, revision, and refinement of neurobiological theories of psychopathology. Besides being utilized as potential treatments for various mental disorders, pharmacological drugs play an important epistemic role as experimental instruments that help scientists uncover the neurobiological underpinnings of mental disorders (Tsou, 2012). Interventions with psychiatric patients using pharmacological drugs provide researchers with information about the neurobiological causes of mental disorders that cannot be obtained in other ways. This important source of (...) evidence for the biological causes of mental disorder is often overlooked in philosophical analyses of psychiatry, especially in skeptical analyses that debase the biological aspects of psychopathology (e.g., Szasz, 1960; Scheff, 1963; Laing, 1967). In discussing pharmacological interventions as a form of evidence for the physical basis of mental disorders, this paper aims to clarify the nature, reliability, and limitations of this evidence. In addition, it illustrates the central role that pharmacological findings in applied clinical contexts play in the acquisition of neurobiological knowledge in research contexts. (shrink)

Jonathan Y. Tsou examines and defends positions on central issues in philosophy of psychiatry. The positions defended assume a naturalistic and realist perspective and are framed against skeptical perspectives on biological psychiatry. Issues addressed include the reality of mental disorders; mechanistic and disease explanations of abnormal behavior; definitions of mental disorder; natural and artificial kinds in psychiatry; biological essentialism and the projectability of psychiatric categories; looping effects and the stability of mental disorders; psychiatric classification; and the validity of the DSM's (...) diagnostic categories. The main argument defended by Tsou is that genuine mental disorders are biological kinds with harmful effects. This argument opposes the dogma that mental disorders are necessarily diseases that result from biological dysfunction. Tsou contends that the broader ideal of biological kinds offers a more promising and empirically ascertainable naturalistic standard for assessing the reality of mental disorders and the validity of psychiatric categories. (shrink)

Purpose. The dynamics and pace of social and economic transformations that are characteristic of modern society, lead to an increase in tension and the destruction of habitual stereotypes – ideals, values, norms, patterns of behaviour that unite people. These moments encourage us to rethink the understanding of "security" essence, in particular, psychological, which emphasizes the urgency of its study in the philosophical and sociocultural coordinates. Theoretical basis of the research is based on the philosophical methodology of K. Jaspers, E. Fromm (...) and the A. Maslow’s psychological approach to understanding of a person. Originality. Psychological security is considered at different levels: first and foremost, society is a characteristic of social security, that is an analysis of how today’s social technologies, social changes affect the quality of life of the country’s population; secondly, the social environment – the family, the immediate environment, reference groups, training teams; thirdly, a person is an experience of his own security-insecurity, when it is possible to talk about the manifestations of psychological violence, when certain behavioral acts contribute to the violation of the security of the other or to self-destruction. It is found out that the knowledge of psychological security is closely connected with the socio-historical conditions of being, with the level of development of material and spiritual culture, with the interests and values prevailing in society, which determines its ontological, epistemological and axiological features. The presented issue is considered in the correlation of psychological security with types of scientific rationality – classical, nonclassical and post-nonclassical approaches, within the framework of which various perspectives, aspects, forms and types of psychological security are studied. Conclusions. The concept of security requires a systematic description of its manifestations, types, levels, concepts: security as the absence of dangers ; security as a certain activity to ensure or to prevent any threats or dangers ; security as a conscious necessity, the value of the individual. The study systematizes various ideas about psychological security in accordance with the logic of scientific knowledge: in the mainstream of classical, non-classical and post-nonclassical approaches. (shrink)

Dans cette sélection d’extraits d’un interview avec Zsuzsa Laszlo, Dominique Malaquais et Kadiatou Diallo proposent une parole commune autour de SPARCK (Space for Pan-African Research, Creation, and Knowledge), qu’elles ont fondé en 2008. C’est un programme expérimental et multidisciplinaire de résidences d’artistes, d’ateliers, d’expositions, de publications et de performances centré sur des approches novatrices et éthiques d’espaces et de sociétés postcoloniales. Les projets SPARCK prennent pour point de départ les Afriques, pour penser le monde et ses futurs depuis le (...) continent et ses diasporas. (shrink)

This study aims to examine the relationship between national cultural dimensions and the probability of a firm being externally audited. It uses a large set of representative micro-data from nearly 3000 firms across 34 industries in 13 countries in Eastern Europe and the Middle East over the period 2008–2010, and Schwartz’s cultural dimensions, namely autonomy, embeddedness, egalitarianism and hierarchy. The findings show that the relationship between firm audits and cultural autonomy and egalitarianism is strongly positive and statistically significant. Specifically, they (...) show that an increase of one standard deviation in affective autonomy increases the probability that a firm will engage in an external audit by 3.37%. Along the same lines, a 1 SD increase in egalitarianism leads to a 8.36% increase in the likelihood of a firm engaging in an external audit. However, there is no clear evidence that embeddedness and hierarchy play a role in firms’ external auditing trends. These findings remain robust to the use of several confounding factors at the firm and country levels. This research highlights its uniqueness in the choice of national culture as a determinant for the likelihood of external audits. (shrink)

The robustness of a system indicates its ability to withstand disturbances while maintaining its properties, performance, and efficiency. There are plenty of studies on the robustness of air transport networks in the literature. However, few works consider its mesoscopic organization. Building on the recently introduced component structure, we explore the impact of targeted attacks on the weighted world air transportation network on its components. Indeed, it contains five local components covering different regions and one global component linking these regions. We (...) investigate targeted attacks based on influential weighted centrality measures. Results show that the local components gradually separate from the world air transportation network as the fraction of removed airports grows. The weighted betweenness attack removes fewer top airports to isolate the regions compared to its alternatives. Furthermore, it is still convenient to travel locally in the separate areas. In contrast, strength and PageRank attacks need to target more airports to split the network. However, they are more disruptive. Indeed, the size of the isolated local components reduces drastically, so it becomes more challenging to travel locally. Looking at the world air transportation network through its component structure reveals a new viewpoint on its resilence. It opens new perspectives to design more efficient attacks. (shrink)

The main objective of Zika transmission studies is to work out the simplest approach to scale back human mortality and morbidity caused by the disease. Therefore, it is essential to spot the relative importance of the various factors contributing to the transmission and prevalence of the disease. Many mathematical models have been formulated incorporating vector-to-human transmission or human-to-human transmission. However, they do not take into consideration the mixture of both sorts of transmission. It raises the question of the impact of (...) both sorts of transmission on the disease dynamics. We develop a mathematical model of Zika with the vertical transmission in the vector population and human-to-human transmission to answer this question. It includes the immature phase of mosquitoes, adult mosquitoes, and human hosts. Results show that neglecting sexual transmission results in an understatement of the proportion of the infected population. Furthermore, it reduces the speed of disease spreading. On the other hand, vertical transmission in mosquitoes has a negligible effect on the dynamics of disease spread. We perform a sensitivity analysis of the reproductive number R 0 to raise to understand the parameters driving the dynamics of the disease. It appears that the most sensitive parameters in decreasing order are as follows: the adult mosquito death rate, the sting rate, the transmission probability of mosquito to human, and, therefore, the transmission probability of human to mosquito. Furthermore, the proportion at the equilibrium of infected humans is extremely sensitive to the transition rate from the immature vector stage to the adult stage, the human-to-human transmission rate, and, therefore, the human recovery rate. These results confirm that control policies targeting the vector population and, therefore, the recovery rate of people are pretty effective solutions. To validate the model and estimate the important parameters of the model and the prediction of the disease, we consider the real cases in Colombia from 2016. In a series of graphic maps, we presented the comparative study to estimate the disease scenarios and to predict the time limit of the epidemic control measure. (shrink)

Using the corpus of JSTOR articles, we investigate the role of gender in collaboration patterns across the scholarly landscape by analyzing gender-based homophily--the tendency for researchers to co-author with individuals of the same gender. For a nuanced analysis of gender homophily, we develop methodology necessitated by the fact that the data comprises heterogeneous sub-disciplines and that not all authorships are exchangeable. In particular, we distinguish three components of gender homophily in collaborations: a structural component that is due to demographics and (...) non-gendered authorship norms of a scholarly community, a compositional component which is driven by varying gender representation across sub-disciplines, and a behavioral component which we define as the remainder of observed homophily after its structural and compositional components have been taken into account. Using minimal modeling assumptions, we measure and test for behavioral homophily. We find that significant behavioral homophily can be detected across the JSTOR corpus and show that this finding is robust to missing gender indicators in our data. In a secondary analysis, we show that the proportion of female representation in a field is positively associated with significant behavioral homophily. (shrink)

Planteamiento de la naturaleza, de la filosof a y de su raz n hist rica, al contemplar panor micamente la totalidad de su pasado e intentar reconstruir el dram tico suceso de su origen.

Using William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and the play-within-the play, The Murder of Gonzago, as a case study, this essay argues that theatrical utterances constitute a special case of language usage not previously elucidated: the utterance of a statement with propositional content in theatre functions as an event. In short, the propositional content of a particular p (e.g. p1, p2, p3 …), whether or not it is true, is only understood—and understood to be true—if p1 is uttered in a particular time, place, (...) and situation (i.e. during a theatrical event); otherwise, the propositional content in those theatrical utterances can either be false or contingently true. (shrink)

The potential to collect brain data more directly, with higher resolution, and in greater amounts has heightened worries about mental and brain privacy. In order to manage the risks to individuals posed by these privacy challenges, some have suggested codifying new privacy rights, including a right to “mental privacy.” In this paper, we consider these arguments and conclude that while neurotechnologies do raise significant privacy concerns, such concerns are—at least for now—no different from those raised by other well-understood data collection (...) technologies, such as gene sequencing tools and online surveillance. To better understand the privacy stakes of brain data, we suggest the use of a conceptual framework from information ethics, Helen Nissenbaum’s “contextual integrity” theory. To illustrate the importance of context, we examine neurotechnologies and the information flows they produce in three familiar contexts—healthcare and medical research, criminal justice, and consumer marketing. We argue that by emphasizing what is distinct about brain privacy issues, rather than what they share with other data privacy concerns, risks weakening broader efforts to enact more robust privacy law and policy. (shrink)

Initial responses to questionnaires used to assess participants' understanding of informed consent for malaria vaccine trials conducted in the United States and Mali were tallied. Total scores were analyzed by age, sex, literacy (if known), and location. Ninety-two percent (92%) of answers by United States participants and 85% of answers by Malian participants were correct. Questions more likely to be answered incorrectly in Mali related to risk, and to the type of vaccine. For adult participants, independent predictors of higher scores (...) were younger age and female sex in the United States, and male sex in Mali. Scores in the United States were higher than in Mali (P = 0.005). Despite this difference participants at both sites were well informed overall. Although interpretation must be qualified because questionnaires were not intended as research tools and were not standardized among sites, these results do not support concerns about systematic low understanding among research participants in developing versus developed countries. (shrink)

In this text presented here, it has been tried to Show the difference between Heidegger’s first and second era understanding of language. In his first era, to manifest Heidegger’s understanding of language, outlines of Being and Time has been discussed and concerned chapter is read carefully. To manifest his understanding of language in second era, the work of On the Way to the Language has been taken as a base. With this comparative study, it has been tried to shown the (...) change that “language” has undergone in Heidegger philosophy. (shrink)

Coinciding with the rising development of emerging markets, sustainable consumption practices in these markets are increasingly under scrutiny. In this context, we compare empirical results from consumers in four countries (three emerging markets and one developed market) in an experimental study to uncover patterns of preferences for sustainable luxury products (i.e., products that combine sustainability and luxury characteristics). Our findings illustrate that consumers’ quality, emotional, price, and social value perceptions, as well as purchase and electronic word-of-mouth intentions, are consistently higher (...) in all three emerging markets compared to the developed market. We find that sustainability (vs. conventional) product features increase consumers’ product value perceptions and behavioral intentions, although this effect is partially stronger for the developed compared to the emerging market(s). We further show a positive sustainability effect for luxury products, this effect is stronger for mass-market products. Combining sustainability and luxury signals leads to similar effects in emerging and developed markets. Thus, emerging markets have promise in terms of scope for incorporating sustainability characteristics into luxury products. Sustainable luxury consumption can therefore be understood as a manifestation of global consumer culture. (shrink)

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015. When reasoning about knowledge of procedures under imperfect information, the explicit representation of epistemic possibilities blows up the S5like models of standard epistemic logic. To overcome this drawback, in this paper, we propose a new logical framework based on compact models without epistemic accessibility relations for reasoning about knowledge of procedures. Inspired by the 3-valued abstraction method in model checking, we introduce hyper models which encode the imperfect procedural information. We give a highly non-trivial 2-valued (...) semantics of epistemic dynamic logic on such models while validating all the usual S5 axioms. Our approach is suitable for applications where procedural information is ‘learned’ incrementally, as demonstrated by various examples. (shrink)

Autobiography and phenomenology: Preface for Germans (1934).--Phenomenology and theory of knowledge: Sensation, construction, and intuition (1913). On the concept of sensation (1913). Consciousness, the object, and its three distances (1916).--Phenomenology and esthetics: An essay in esthetics by way of a preface (1914). Esthetics on the streetcar (1916).--An esthetics of historical reason: The idea of theater: an abbreviated view (1946). Reviving the paintings (Velázquez, chapter I) (1946).

Malian farmers’ traditional system for managing seed of sorghum, an indigenous crop of vital importance for food security and survival, can be conceptualized as a commons. Although this system maintains a wide range of varieties and helps ensure access to seed, its ability to create and widely disseminate new varieties to meet evolving opportunities and challenges is limited. A network of farmer groups, public breeding programs, and development organizations collaborating in decentralized creation and dissemination of sorghum varieties in Mali is (...) examined regarding (1) how the network developed and what activities it conducts; (2) the resulting varietal diversity, varietal performance and organizational models; and (3) the elements of the traditional seed system that were maintained, strengthened or transformed. A single-case study approach was used that relies on published literature, official catalogues of released varieties and a database of farmer seed-cooperative requests for foundation seed. The functioning of the network and its varietal-, seed-, and organizational- outcomes are documented and the elements of the traditional sorghum seed system that are maintained or strengthened are analyzed. The evolution of the network’s reliance on commoning as a social process and its strengthening of core Seed Commons features are discussed with a view to the network’s contributions to targeted development outcomes and potential replicability. The case demonstrates how creating a framework for collaboration, enabling actors and organizations to take on collective responsibility while maintaining distributed decision-making at local level, opens opportunities for transforming farming- and food-systems towards sustainability and resilience. (shrink)

Let ≤r and ≤sbe two binary relations on 2ℕ which are meant as reducibilities. Let both relations be closed under finite variation and consider the uniform distribution on 2ℕ, which is obtained by choosing elements of 2ℕ by independent tosses of a fair coin.Then we might ask for the probability that the lower ≤r-cone of a randomly chosen set X, that is, the class of all sets A with A ≤rX, differs from the lower ≤s-cone of X. By c osure (...) under finite variation, the Kolmogorov 0-1 aw yields immediately that this probability is either 0 or 1; in case it is 1, the relations are said to be separable by random oracles.Again by closure under finite variation, for every given set A, the probability that a randomly chosen set X is in the upper ≤r-cone of A is either 0 or 1; let Almostr be the class of sets for which the upper ≤r-cone has measure 1. In the following, results about separations by random oracles and about Almost classes are obtained in the context of generalized reducibilities, that is, for binary relations on 2ℕ which can be defined by a countable set of total continuous functionals on 2ℕ in the same way as the usual resource-bounded reducibilities are defined by an enumeration of appropriate oracle Turing machines. The concept of generalized reducibility comprises a natura resource-bounded reducibilities, but is more general; in particular, it does not involve any kind of specific machine model or even effectivity. The results on generalized reducibilities yield corollaries about specific resource-bounded reducibilities, including several results which have been shown previously in the setting of time or space bounded Turing machine computations. (shrink)

Though Spinoza's definition of God at the beginning of the Ethics unequivocally asserts that God has infinitely many attributes, the reader of the Ethics will find only two of these attributes discussed in any detail in Parts Two through Five of the book. Addressing this intriguing gap between the infinity of attributes asserted in E1d6 and the discussion merely of the two attributes of Extension and Thought in the rest of the book, Jonathan Bennett writes: Spinoza seems to imply that (...) there are other [attributes] – he says indeed that God or Nature has “infinite attributes.” Surprising as it may seem, there are reasons to think that by this Spinoza did not mean anything entailing that there are more than two attributes. In this paper I will argue that Bennett’s claim is fundamentally wrong and deeply misleading. I do think, however, that addressing Bennett’s challenge will help us better understand Spinoza’s notion of infinity. I will begin by summarizing Bennett’s arguments. I will then turn to examine briefly the textual evidence for and against his reading. Then I will respond to each of Bennett’s arguments, and conclude by pointing out theoretical considerations which, I believe, simply refute his reading. (shrink)

RésuméL'ouvrage galéniqueSur les Éléments selon Hippocrateest une importante source d'information concernant les théories physiques de l'antiquité tardive. Les diverses doctrines atomistes discutées par Galien ainsi que les arguments employés par lui pour les réfuter ont été étudiés de près par les premiersMutakallimūn.Les abrégés de cet ouvrage, qui semblent avoir été écrits plusieurs siècles après Galien, et dont certains remontent aux débuts de la culture islamique, présentent un intérêt particulier. Dans cet article, nous donnons une édition, une traduction et une étude (...) d'un abrégé inconnu jusqu'ici, conservé dans un unique manuscrit, qui l'attribue à Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq. Comme les autres abrégés, il s'agit en fait d'une doxographie de théories physiques qui ne reproduit pas toujours précisément ce que Galien a dit, mais qui reflète le discours de l'époque où elle a été rédigée. (shrink)